Prior art dealing with fusion research is extensive; representative summaries are given in Appendix A, which may be consulted for explanation of scientific terms that are employed in this patent description. Although many patents have been issued for "fusion systems", to date none of these systems has reached the milestone of releasing fusion energy equal to the amount originally invested in the plasma. Indeed, all systems that have been tested experimentally have fallen far short of this "break-even" goal.
Two general approaches have been developed during the past decades of fusion research: One is "inertial confinement" in which the nuclei react during a time that is less than the disassembly time (because of the inertia of the particles). The second is "magnetic confinement" employing configurations of magnetic fields termed mirror-machine, stellarator, tokomak, etc. These are described in the reference of Appendix A. In each case, the nuclei are "thermalized" in the sense that fusion reactions occur via essentially "head-on" impacts; stated alternatively, the nuclei have distributions in velocity and in angle, somewhat resembling the case of molecules of gas in a container.
For the plasmas of all present-day fusion devices, the center of mass is stationary in the laboratory frame of reference, just as it is true for the molecules of a gas in a container. This point is important, because for the invention to be described below, the center of mass of the energetic nuclei has a high velocity in the laboratory frame of reference. This fact, together with the solenoidal magnetic field confining apparatus, represents a novel combination, having characteristics and advantages that are described in the following pages.
The title of this patent disclosure involves the concept of a solenoidal magnetic field. By itself, such a concept is not at all novel. Indeed, the well-known "Helmholtz coils" that are used in magnetics developments provide a solenoidal-type magnetic field that has an essentially uniform intensity in its central plane. Also, the well-known magnetic field configuration of a cyclotron has some resemblance to a solenoidal magnetic field. The "mirror-machine" and the "Astron" devices of contemporary plasma research are also variations of the "Helmholtz coils", in regard to the magnetic field configuration. However, the combination of specific plasmas in the magnetic fields represents the novelty of the approaches. The "Astron" approach, for example, seeks to obtain an "E" layer (originally consisting of electron beams, and later of ion beams) of sufficient intensity to "reverse" the direction of the local magnetic field, thereby providing a confinement field for a thermalized plasma.
In the description to be given below, the combination of a novel plasma and a solenoidal-type magnetic field provides certain important features and advantages, as will be pointed out.
It is important to note that the operating regime of this thermonuclear fusion system differs markedly from its "start-up" regime. The initial production of the moving-plasma (consisting of the ion beams plus space-charge neutralizing electrons) can be accomplished with the aid of laser beams; these are not needed after the operating conditions are achieved.